


DVD commentary for "20 Things Kagami Taiga Hates / Dislikes / Is Slowly Getting Used To, About Living In Japan"

by Wine Dark Sea (aubreyli)



Series: Basketball boys in love [2]
Category: DVD commentary - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 14:39:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4183647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubreyli/pseuds/Wine%20Dark%20Sea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’ve always loved reading <a href="http://fanlore.org/wiki/DVD_Commentary%E2%80%9D">DVD commentaries</a> for fics, and this fic in particular is both the most fun and the most challenging thing I’ve written in a while now, so I thought I’d do a commentary for it.  Apologies in advance for gratuitous references, self-absorbed rambling on the writer’s process, and probably more information about me than anyone actually wanted to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	DVD commentary for "20 Things Kagami Taiga Hates / Dislikes / Is Slowly Getting Used To, About Living In Japan"

**I said in my author’s notes that this fic is heavily influenced by Copperbadge’s “Partial Dictionary” fic (which, if you haven’t read yet, and you’re into Steve/Tony, or just really well-characterized Steve Rogers in general, you should totally read).  Aside from the obvious challenge of finding twenty things about Japan for Kagami to complain about, the biggest challenge was actually the fact that this story, despite its relatively non-linear format, still had to have a plot that flowed from beginning to end.  Therefore, Kagami had to fall in love with Kuroko.  Of course, this brought up a whole new series of challenges, because not only did I have to build a relationship, I had to do it while keeping each discrete step _alphabetical._**

**1\.   America, It’s Not**

The thing is, Taiga hadn’t even wanted to go to America in the first place.  He’d have been perfectly happy staying in Japan, where he had friends and spoke the language and didn’t feel like a freak for having a weird name that half his teachers mispronounced as  _Tay_ -ga Ka- _ga_ -me and the other half wanted changed to  _Taylor_ or  _Tyler_ or something.

**A lot of Kagami’s experiences are based on my own, as someone who grew up in China, then came to North America (at around the same age he did, actually), and then went back to China for a while as an adult.  The name thing in the fic, which happens to a lot of immigrant children, was inspired by my fourth grade teacher, who offered to give me an English name because he couldn’t pronounce my Chinese name.  I also kind of liked the idea of people going, “Your name is _Tiger?”_ and Kagami protesting that no, that’s not what his name means!**

But then, Tatsuya happened, and basketball, and Alex, and basketball, and his English teacher, Mrs. Ash, who gave him a Reese’s Piece whenever he wrote his homework in cursive, and  _basketball,_ and yeah, it was still a fucking pain whenever some idiot asked him why he had red hair if he was Japanese, but he was starting to like America.

**Kagami has terrible penmanship in Japanese, but very nice cursive in English.  He’s also heavily food-motivated.  I saw the chance and ran with it. :)**

Even later, when he didn’t have Tatsuya anymore, or Alex, really, and Mrs. Ash had retired, he still had basketball, and that was enough.  He had it all planned out: he was going to play college ball, like Alex; then he was going to go pro.  He’d play for the Bulls, power forward, and single-handedly lead them to victories the likes of which they haven’t seen since the mid-nineties.  He’d beat out Derrick Rose by winning the MVP award at 21, and at the presentation ceremony, His Fucking Airness himself would personally come up to him, shake his hand, and ask if he’d like to play a little one-on-one sometime.

What?  A guy could dream, couldn’t he?

**American basketball references!  His Airness refers to Michael Jordan, who I think we all know by now that Kagami is supposed to resemble in terms of playing style (right down to their tendency to ball-hog).  He played for the Chicago Bulls in the mid-1990s, when the Bulls had multiple NBA championship victories.  He generally played small forward or shooting guard, but I thought that Kagami, who doesn’t quite have MJ’s touch but who makes up for it in stubbornness, would do better as a power forward.  Besides, it parallels his position on Seirin’s team.  Derrick Rose, another Bulls player, won the MVP award when he was 22 years old.  Kagami obviously has ambitious goals.**

**I did consider giving Kagami more current basketball idols, like LeBron James, or at least making him a Lakers boy for hometown pride, but I just liked the thought of little Kagami watching grainy VHS tapes of MJ playing in the nineties and going all starry-eyed.**

 

**2\.   Basketball**

All right, so fine, he’d maybe underestimated Japanese basketball at first.  Can anyone blame him, though, in a country where the average height of a man is 5’8 (or… 170-something… centimeters; seriously, switching to metric is  _hard_ )?  Taiga had Googled Japan basketball; even the top-tier guys in the JBL, most of them had blank Wikipedia pages.  He’d watched Japanese basketball on Youtube, and it wasn’t bad, but it was just… boring. 

**I don’t think it escaped anyone’s notice that Kagami’s so _unhappy_ being in Japan, which I suppose makes sense if you take the fact that he considers America to be the mecca of basketball.  The fact that he doesn’t even know about the Generation of Miracles, though, is surprising considering he spends a whole year in Japan before entering Seirin.  I guess he just completely ignored all Japanese basketball?**

Tabuse Yuta was pretty awesome, though; Taiga would give Japan that.

**Tabuse Yuta (point guard) was the first Japanese-born player to make the NBA.  And he is pretty awesome.**

So no, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about signing up for his high school’s basketball club (that was something else that was weird:  _club_ , not  _team_ ), and remained not exactly thrilled right up until Kuroko and Kise and Kuroko (who gets two mentions because Taiga hadn’t  _known,_  the first time, and Kuroko’s more than gotten him back for what he’d said so Taiga refuses to feel guilty) happened, and yeah, okay, being number one in Japan sounds pretty fucking awesome now.

**Okay, the club vs. team thing is weird, especially when they also use the English word “team,” though I’m assuming that “club” refers to everyone, whereas “team” is just the starters + benchwarmers?  As for what Kagami said to Kuroko when they first met (i.e., he should give up basketball because he’s clearly not built for it), while I don’t believe Kagami feels any lingering guilt, if the DS games any indication, Kuroko does still bring it up from time to time.**

 

**3\.   Cold, Why is it so fucking**

When Taiga was still living in LA, he used to snicker at other people when they’d break out the winter gear as soon as it dropped below 60 degrees.   _Wusses,_ he’d call them, whenever he’d see news broadcasters act like a cloudy day was a sign of the impending apocalypse.

**For those of you who use the metric system, 60 degrees Fahrenheit is about 15 degrees Celsius.  According to a friend of mine, who grew up in Los Angeles and then came to New Jersey from university, LA people actually do that.  Kagami’s dislike of the cold is very much inspired by her experiences adjusting a place where it snows in the winter.**

So maybe he deserves what he’s getting now.

“Is Kagami-kun preparing for battle?” Kuroko asks, blinking owlishly up at him. 

“Shut up,” Taiga replies, though with his face covered with two scarves and a hat, it probably comes out as, “Mmmph mmmph.”  He paws clumsily at his collar with his double-gloved hands, and immediately regrets it when his bare skin, damp from the condensation of his breath, is stung by the cold air.  “It’s  _freezing._ How the hell are you just wearing _that?”_

Kuroko looks down.  He’s only wearing a scarf over his uniform, which Taiga thought was just an anime thing and not something people did in real life  _when it was snowing outside._ “It’s not very cold yet.”  He nods toward Nigou, happily frolicking in the snow.  “Look, Nigou’s enjoying himself.”

**Little bit of anime meta here: the scarf during winter thing is kind of like the running with a piece of bread in your mouth because you’re late for school thing – a well-loved anime trope.**

“He’s an  _Alaskan_ Malamute.”  A brisk wind buffets them suddenly, and Taiga shivers again.  He’s definitely breaking out the space heater as soon as he gets home.  “Look, can we go back now?  I think he’s had enough exercise for one day.  I’m starting to lose feeling in my toes.”

“Of course, Kagami-kun.”  Kuroko calls for his dog, who trots obediently towards him, tongue lolling and tail wagging.  Kuroko picks him up and starts to brush snow off his fur.  “I deeply apologize,” he says in his most demure voice, “I was not aware that Kagami-kun was of such a delicate constitution, and I’m very sorry to have caused Kagami-kun such harm—”

And then Taiga has absolutely no choice but to grab a handful of snow  _(fuck, cold, fuck)_  and stuff it in Kuroko’s face.

**First exposure to Kuroko-speak, which became an unexpected thorn in my side.  Seriously, I have nothing but respect for authors who write good Kuroko dialogue, because he speaks with very distinctly Japanese speech patterns that are very difficult to translate into English.  Probably the most obvious is the fact that he doesn’t use “you” a lot, which is fine in Japanese because the language structure allows for it, but is really hard to do in English.  I settled (probably very badly) by just using “Kagami-kun,” which Kuroko also does.**

 

**4\.   Cultural Festivals**

Coach wants him to do  _what_ now?  While wearing  _what?_ The fuck is a maid café?  What does that have to do with _culture?_

He’s being punked, right?  This is a joke?  He’s not really going to have to wear a dress?

**Thank you, animation team.  You DO love us!**

 

**5\.   Dogs**

Okay, so this one isn’t really a Japanese thing, because they have dogs back home, too.  But at least the dogs in America are on  _leashes_ where they  _belong_ and not sitting on people’s heads and running around in gyms when people are  _trying to play basketball_.  And the little mutt gets away with it too, because their  _coach_ thinks it’s  _cute,_ and the rest of the team thinks it’s  _funny_ to watch Taiga run away from a tiny dog, even though everyone  _knows_ that the tiny dogs are the most bloodthirsty.  

**The way _Kuroko no Basuke_ handles Kagami’s canine phobia is interesting.  The manga handles it a little better, especially when it comes to Kuroko; in the manga, he’s genuinely hoping to help Kagami accept Nigou, whereas in the anime, it seems like he’s scaring Kagami for kicks.  I’m not very fond of dogs either, so I feel you, Kagami, I feel you.**

But the worst part is that Nigou, for some reason, seems to like Taiga.  Which Taiga doesn’t understand – aren’t dogs supposed to like, sense human emotion or some shit?  What part of, “get the hell away from me” translates to, “please come closer and sniff my crotch”?  And why does it only do that to Taiga?  When  _literally anyone else_ tells it to do stuff, it fucking  _does,_ and then everyone coos over how  _adorable_ and  _well-trained_ it is. 

**The interesting thing about Nigou is that he really is a very well-trained dog, especially considering the fact that he’s a stray.  Kuroko’s clearly done a good job socializing him.  Nigou is friendly to strangers (for the most part; I choose to interpret his initial disdain of Momoi as foreshadowing rather than proper animal behaviour), and has clearly adopted the Seirin basketball team as his pack-family.  And the barking is cute, so I’m going to ignore the fact that, as an Alaskan Malamute, he should be going “woo-woo” instead.**

And the  _worst_ – okay,  _worst_ worst part is that Taiga can’t even  _say_ anything, because then Kuroko gives him the  _sad eyes_  , and so does his fucking  _dog_  , and Taiga doesn’t know why no one believes him when he says that Kuroko is an awful, manipulative person, because he really, totally  _is_.

**Can I talk about how much I love the fact that _everyone_ in _KnB_ -verse, including _Midorima,_ is weak to the double puppy-dog eyes?  Also, Kuroko is my angel boy, but he _does_ get away with far too much because he’s adorable.  And I love him for it.**

Well, no, Midorima would probably believe him, but  _he’s_ an asshole too, so fuck that guy.  Though Kuroko did tell him about the time Nigou peed in Midorima’s rickshaw, so maybe it’s not  _that_ bad… you know, for a  _dog._

 

**6\.   Etiquette**

Contrary to what a lot of people would believe, Taiga is not actually that ignorant about Japanese social etiquette.  Even when they were in the States, his dad spoke Japanese to him at home.  They had a slipper cubby in their entrance way, and everybody took off their shoes when they came in.  Sure, Taiga might not know how to conduct a tea ceremony, or the exact angle your bow is supposed to be when you’re introducing yourself, but he says his  _please_ and  _thank_   _yous_ , and he always brings a gift when he’s visiting someone’s home for the first time. 

In fact – and this is something he’ll never tell anyone, because no one will believe him – when he was a kid, a lot of the adults he’d met would praise his parents for having raised such a  _polite_ boy.

**I had an interesting time trying to figure out just how culturally aware Kagami should be, and how much he should remember from growing up in Japan.  I settled on him remembering the stuff they teach children, which is why he knows to bow and stuff, and that he knows the courtesies that are relatively more universal, like saying please and bringing gifts.**

**Personally, I’d like to see a manga series where the character who comes back to Japan from overseas ends up being _too polite,_ because all the Japanese they know, they learned from outdated textbooks, so even when they’re insulting people, they use “anata.”**

And even in Japan, he’s not  _rude_ or anything, he’s just not formal enough – but it’s not like anyone bothers teaching eight year-olds keigo, so it’s not his fault he never learned it.  And if he’s being honest, the way some people talk here is just  _weird._ Like, when Kuroko’s being all polite and formal, even though he’s actually throwing like, five kinds of shade at people.  Or when Coach does that cutesy little girl voice while she talks about how she’s going to make them do footwork drills until they beg for mercy. 

**I think it’s important to note that Kagami is a very biased narrator in this fic, and because we only get his POV, we only know what he knows, and we believe what he believes.  Of course, it’s not true that Japanese people are the only ones who say impolite things politely, but Kagami’s a simple, straightforward boy who likes simple, straightforward things.  As far as he’s concerned, if you’re going to talk shit, TALK SHIT.**

One thing that seems to be a universal constant, though, is the fact that it really is the sweet, polite ones you’ve got to watch out for.

**7\.   Exams**

A.k.a., the  _bane_ of Taiga’s existence.  That was a word he didn’t even know until it showed up on his English exam.  Which, by the way?  Was fucking ridiculous, because – one:  _nobody_ talks like that in real life, all “could you direct me to the train platform bound for Kyoto?” and “I will have completed my homework by the time you arrive tomorrow”; and two: who the fuck  _cares_ if he doesn’t know the difference between a direct and indirect object?  Taiga would like to see any of his classmates who are getting perfect scores in English actually try to have a  _real_  conversation with a  _real_ English-speaking person and not a fucking textbook.

**I don’t know how it is in other English-speaking countries, but at least in Canada, very little English grammar is actually taught in schools, especially at the elementary level.  So it makes perfect sense to me that Kagami might have perfect fluency in English (shhh, let’s pretend he does), but be completely unable to explain the function of a preposition.  Similarly, as Koganei demonstrates with Alex, understanding the grammatical structure of a language doesn’t necessarily mean that you can speak it.**

It’s frustrating, because Taiga was never a great student, nothing like how his dad was when he was Taiga’s age, but he was always at least average back home.  Here, though, he’s barely scraping the bottom of the academic barrel.  And it’s not just that Taiga’s a lifetime behind in subjects like social studies (or whatever they call it here), or that he knows about as many kanji as an eight year-old, but even the stuff that Taiga does know – science, math – is suddenly so much harder because everything’s in Japanese. 

**Okay, I know what Fujimaki-sensei said about Kagami passing the Seirin exam based on guts, but realistically, that should not have happened if his knowledge base is actually that poor.  Maybe he applied as a foreign student, and got a different exam that had an oral component?  I don’t know.  In fact, as an educator myself, I’m somewhat annoyed at Kagami’s father for not getting his son additional tutoring before he left Kagami alone in a school system where he can’t read the course texts.**

**For additional insight into Kagami’s educational and familial background, as well as really awesome characterization in general, I suggest you read dawnstruck’s fic,["Etiquette"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3473327).  That’s basically my headcanon.  **

Oh, and also?  Japanese literature makes no sense.  How is this conversation about love when it clearly says that they’re talking about the moon?  Why don’t any of the characters just  _say_ what they’re feeling?  It’s like every book he reads is written in a code that everyone understands except him. 

**The moon thing is a reference to the story about Natsume Soseki, a Meiji era writer, who famously said that “I love you” should be translated into something along the lines of “The moon is beautiful tonight,” because that would be a more culturally appropriate thing for a man to say.**

“I give up,” Taiga moans, letting his head drop onto the table, a  _thunk_ punctuating every word.  “I’m. Never. Going. To. Get. This.”

“Please don’t make so much noise in a library, Kagami-kun,” Kuroko admonishes.  “Besides, there’s only one more question.”

“How can rain even be a symbol?  It’s  _rain._ ”

“It symbolizes his anguish at being powerless to protect someone he cares about.”

“Seriously?  Ugh.  Why does he even care?  He’s known that girl for like,  _two weeks."_

“She changed his life,” Kuroko says, quietly.  “She saved him, and then showed him how to save others.  Of course he’d care.”

**This is a reference to the manga series, _Bleach_ , which I know is not a classic literary work that would be studied in school, but – come on!  Unhappy protagonist burdened with guilt and helplessness has a fateful meeting with a deuteragonist whose name means “light” and who gives him the power to save himself and others?  How could I resist?**

Taiga looks at him.  He never knows how to react when Kuroko talks like this; it always makes him feel like they’re actually having two conversations, but Taiga can only hear one of them.

**Somewhat heavy-handed parallel between Kagami’s understanding of Japanese culture and his understanding of Kuroko.  It was meant to serve two purposes: to foreshadow the fact that Kuroko already loves him back, and also to fit into the overall narrative that as Kagami grows to love Kuroko more he also appreciates Japan more.  The second one didn’t work out as neatly as I’d wanted, though, mostly because I didn’t _want_ Kagami to magically become acculturated by the power of love.**

But clearly Kuroko’s better at reading Taiga than vice versa, because he smiles and says, “There’s a public basketball court just a few minutes’ walk from here.  If Kagami-kun finishes quickly, we can get in at least an hour of play time before it closes.”

 

**8\.   Food**

The first time Taiga steps into a Tokyo grocery store, he immediately understands why Japanese people are so small.

Seriously, he thought LA was expensive, but 2,000¥ for  _three oranges?_ What the  _fuck?_ And peanut butter –  _peanut butter! –_  is  _how much?_

**Okay, so here I exaggerated a little bit, because while food is expensive in Japan, oranges are generally not three for 2000 yen, unless you’re buying some super special grown-on-the-slopes-of-Mount-Fuji-and-picked-by-virgins-clad-in-the-morning-dew oranges.  Western food is generally more expensive, though, and offered in smaller portions.  Still, Kagami’s weekly food bill must exceed that of most Japanese families.**

It’s a good thing his dad’s generous with his spending money, and that he doesn’t have any hobbies other than basketball, because with how small the portion sizes are here, he’d have to live on bread and ramen otherwise.

And that’s another thing - why are all the portion sizes so tiny?  The first time Taiga ordered a large soda to go with his meal at Maji Burger, he thought they’d made a mistake.  And he  _knows_ a box of large fries is larger back home.  And that is the thinnest fucking beef patty he’s ever seen, no wonder he has to eat like, 20 of them to feel full.

It gets easier over time.  It helps that Taiga actually likes Japanese food, even though there are some days when he just really craves a hot dog (a  _normal_ hot dog, not one of those weird-ass black ones).  He gets really good at finding the right time of day to go to the right places for the best deals, and he learns quickly to not buy spices at supermarkets when he can get them at Daiso for half the cost.

**If you do want a black hot dog, you can apparently go to[Akihabara](http://www.shortlist.com/instant-improver/food/the-black-hotdog-of-tokyo) and get one.  Also, Daiso, for those of you who don’t know, is the Japanese equivalent of a dollar store, only 100x more awesome.  Seriously, anyone planning on going to Tokyo should visit the one in Harajuku.  It’s like, 4 floors and it sells so many things.**

Of course, then his team finds out that he can cook, and he ends up blowing through his food budget anyway, feeding all of them.  He minds it less than he’d thought, not that he’d ever let those free-loading jerks know.  It’s more fun to cook for other people than to cook for just himself.  He’s especially proud of the time he made Korean-style ribs and everyone went for thirds, even Kuroko.

**It’s unfair of me to let Kagami call his team free-loaders, because they do seem to bring food for Kagami to cook.  I just liked the crotchety tone of that line.**

 

**9\.   Generation of Miracles**

They’re all weirdos.  He’s including Kuroko in this, and that Momoi chick.  As much as Taiga appreciates having awesome basketball rivals, he also really hopes that they were weirdos  _before_ they started playing basketball, instead of them becoming like that  _because_ of basketball – because if that’s what Japanese basketball does to people, Taiga’s not sure if he wants to be Japan’s Number One  _that_ badly.

**What? Momoi’s super brain is totally a Miracle.  She’s even got a coloured name!**

Well, he supposes Kise isn’t that bad, once you get over the sparkling and the fake crying and the stupid little nicknames.  And Aomine is much less of a dick now, which means he’s still an arrogant jerk, but at least Taiga no longer wants to punch him in the face.  And once he looks up what the word “tsundere” means, maybe even Midorima is… okay.  Kind of.  But Murasakibara is on his shit list forever, and he’s almost certain that Akashi is actually a serial killer.  Or at least, a member of the yakuza. 

**One of the drawbacks of writing in such a tight POV is that the POV character dictates what the audience needs and does not need to know.  Case in point, Kagami wouldn’t dwell on _why_ he likes some GoM members more than others, because it’s not something that he’d think requires explanation.  But just for the record, he likes Kise because he admires Kise’s passion, and he… doesn’t hate Midorima because even he can tell that Midorima is a decent person who helped him out with his basketball technique (just don’t make him spend any time alone with the guy though, especially if Takao’s not there as an intermediary).  He’s got a love-hate thing with Aomine, because his basketball’s spectacular, but he’s also _such_ a dick (remember, Kagami doesn’t know him like we do), and he can see enough of Aomine in himself that it makes him uncomfortable.  Plus, in the context of the series, Kagami’s basically Aomine’s replacement in Kuroko’s life, and there’s always that tension of whether he’s the knockoff or the upgrade.  Murasakibara, he hates for Kiyoshi-senpai, and Akashi tried to kill him the first time they met.  That kind of thing stays with you.**

It hasn’t escaped his notice, either, that they’re all freakishly obsessed with Kuroko.  In fact, the first time Taiga met Aomine, he totally thought that he and Kuroko had had a  _thing_ (which, whatever, Taiga’s lived in San Francisco; he wasn’t going to judge).  And the way Kise’s always all over Kuroko like he’s a  _dog_ or something – aren’t Japanese people supposed to be  _reserved?_

**I have to admit, the okay with Aomine and Kise possibly being gay line was put in because of lazy writing on my part.  I wanted Kagami to be okay with homosexuality so that when he falls in love with Kuroko later, I wouldn’t have to write his big gay freak out.  The San Francisco thing though, I included because part of my head canon for Kagami’s father is that he’s in IT.**

He does feel a little left out, though, sometimes.  He doesn’t really have friends here, other than his team, and even then, the senpai were already friends with each other, and he hangs out with Furihata, Tsuchida, and Kawahara, but they’re not  _close_ like him and Kuroko.  Only Kuroko’s also got this other group of people who he has a  _history_ with, and sometimes, when they’re around, it’s like Taiga’s not even there.

Taiga doesn’t have anyone like that, except for Tatsuya, but that’s… complicated.

**While it makes me sad for him, I do like the fact that Kagami is canonically bad at making friends because he can really only express himself through basketball.  It makes me sad, because maji tenshi Kagami deserves ALL the love.**

**10\.   Himuro, Tatsuya**

The thing is, Taiga knows that what happened between him and Tatsuya wasn’t his fault.  Alex told him that even in pro ball, friendships sometimes are ruined by rivalry and competition.  And he talked to Tatsuya after, and they’re good now.  It’s not quite what they used to have, though, and Taiga knows it’ll never be.  

**Although not to the same extent, my Kagami contains some degree of Branch’s Kagami from her["Have and Hold"](http://archiveofourown.org/series/27897) series, which you should totally read if you like top!Kuroko, AoKagaKuro threesomes, and D/s (which happen to be three of my favourite things, so that entire fic-verse is my happy place).  While I don’t think that Kagami was actually neglected as a child, I definitely think that a significant part of his bond with Himuro, and later Alex, is the fact that they took care of him on an emotional level.  Going by my headcanon that his dad’s an intellectually gifted workaholic, I don’t think Kagami had anyone in his life who really understood him until he met Himuro.  This, of course, makes their separation all the more tragic, especially considering the fact that Kagami valued Himuro so much that he was willing to compromise his _basketball_ in order to salvage their relationship.**

**I don’t actually think that Kagami considers Kuroko a Tatsuya-replacement – which is good, because Kuroko spends a lot of the series being pretty self-absorbed.  Even his care for Kagami’s basketball stems from a desire to prevent him from becoming like the GoM.  However, I also don’t think that Kagami needs the same amount of care that he did as a kid – he does have friends, he does have teammates, and what he really needs now is a partner who understands and appreciates him.  In that, I think Kuroko is The One.**

Taiga’s okay with that, really.  He’ll always be grateful to Tatsuya for looking after him back then, but he’s not a lonely, awkward kid anymore.  He’s got friends, he’s got teammates, and he’s got basketball.  Besides, even he can see that Murasakibara needs looking after  _way_  more than he ever did. 

**What, he’s not jealous of Murasakibara, why would he be?  He totally doesn’t care that Tatsuya calls him by his first name (the significance of which he understands now) is like his BFF now.  Why would he care?**

It’s just, he remembers what Kise had said to Kuroko that time, about how Taiga’s skills will separate them one day.  And he can’t help but wonder if that will happen with Kuroko, like it happened with Tatsuya – that one day, Kuroko will decide that Taiga doesn’t need him anymore and just… leave.

He doesn’t think it’ll actually happen; Kuroko’s not the kind of person who just walks away from people like that (case in point: all of his old teammates).  But he sees the way Aomine looks at Kuroko sometimes, when he thinks no one’s watching, and it makes a raw part of him ache, just a little.

**Kuroko’s tenacity and determination are probably what Kagami respects and admires most about him.  He doesn’t give up on anything, which I think would definitely appeal to the part of Kagami that’s got abandonment issues.  That’s actually the reason Kagami really doesn’t need to worry about becoming another Aomine.  Aomine walked away from Kuroko first.  Kagami’s not going to do that.**

 

**11\.   Holidays**

So apparently, Christmas in Japan is a couples holiday.  Taiga knows that now.  Of course, he would have  _liked_ to know that  _before_ he invited Kuroko over for Christmas dinner and launched a school-wide rumor that he and Kuroko were dating.  He then tried to fix things by inviting the rest of the team, but that just turned the rumor into him cheating on Kuroko with like, ten other people.

**Technically, Christmas _Eve_ is a couples holiday, akin to the Western Valentine’s Day.  New Years is actually a closer counterpart to the Western Christmas, what with the family gatherings and gifts and stuff.**

Everything was eventually explained, but not before all of Kuroko’s former teammates found out (Taiga has no idea _how_ ) and bombarded him with angry, threatening messages.  Taiga doesn’t know how they even got his number, but apparently the Akashi family has “connections,” which is… creepy.  Kuroko didn’t  _say_ that he had to talk Akashi out of sending hit-men, but he didn’t exactly deny it either.

**The entire purpose of this section is to set up the scene with the GoM texts later on.  And because I thought the idea of Kagami thinking Akashi would send hit-men was kind of hilarious.**

On the plus side, he’s now fully informed about Japanese holidays, and fully intends to be absent on both Valentine’s Day and White Day.

**It’s my headcanon that this one time, a girl gave him homemade Valentine’s chocolates, only he thought she wanted him to just taste them, so he ate one and gave her tips on how to make it better, and even went down to Home Ec to show her exactly how to do it.  This resulted in a sudden spike in Kagami’s popularity that completely baffled him.**

 

**12\.   Kirisaki Dai Ichi**

**Fun fact: in the first draft of this fic, this entire section was written in all-caps.**

Those CHEATING FUCKERS had better stay the FUCK away from Taiga if they know what’s fucking good for them.  Taiga’s played rough ball before in America, but NO SCHOOL TEAM in his hometown would DARE pull shit like that, you know why?  Because they’d get their ASSES beat in the parking lot afterwards by EVERY OTHER FUCKING TEAM in the entire district, THAT’S fucking why.

**Okay, that would never actually happen, because they’d get in trouble if the team they beat up reported it.  But let’s not tell Kagami that.**

And Taiga’s got nothing but MAD RESPECT for Coach and Captain for having the self-control to not MURDER those dickfaces after what they did to Kiyoshi-senpai, because if that RAT BASTARD Hanamiya had actually managed to land that hit on Kuroko, Taiga wouldn’t have cared if he got thrown out, or if he got banned from the ENTIRE FUCKING SPORT – Hanamiya would be SHITTING HIS OWN TEETH when Taiga was done with him.

**Kagami being irrationally protective of Kuroko!  Relationship development takes another step.**

Not that it wasn’t awesome to watch Kuroko take him down LIKE A BOSS, because holy fuck, when Kuroko gets mad, shit gets DONE.

**One of my favourite scenes in the Kirisaki Dai Ichi game is the fact that Kagami’s _scared_ of Kuroko when he’s angry – Kagami, who can probably bench press Kuroko’s entire body weight, sees the rage radiating off of Kuroko’s body and shuts the fuck up.  And you can’t tell me he wasn’t a little turned on when Kuroko made that pass over Hanamiya’s shoulder.**

 

**13\.   Language**

Okay, so his Japanese isn’t the greatest.  He sucks at kanji, and he’s still working on keigo.  But honestly?  He wishes more people would give him credit for the fact that he knows the language at all, considering the fact that he’s spent almost half of his life in another country.  And anyway, Japanese is so unnecessarily complicated.  Like, how many ways do you really need to write a single word? 

**Right?!  Kagami doesn’t get enough credit.  Do you know how easy it is to forget a language when you’re a child immersed in a foreign language environment?  I really hope that the Seirin tutoring team continued even after exams, because he really needs to catch up on what he’s lacking.  He can’t use Midorima’s pencil forever!**

Taiga misses English.  English is easy, nice and direct.  You want to insult someone in English, you call them a fucking asswipe.  In Japanese, you can insult someone completely by accident, just by the way you say their  _name._

And what is the deal with the name stuff?  Like, at what point do you drop the suffix?  Or go from the last name to the first name?  Does it have to be by mutual agreement, because Taiga can’t imagine Midorima ever  _agreeing_ to let his point guard call him “Shin-chan.”  If someone calls you by your first name, are you supposed to reciprocate?

**Oh Midorima.  Honestly, for all that he claims to dislike Takao’s nickname, I bet if Takao ever addresses him properly, he’ll think Takao’s not his friend anymore and be really upset.**

It’s possible that he’s overthinking this.  It’s just, having spent time here, and having met all of Kuroko’s weirdo friends, Taiga thinks he’s starting to get it.  Akashi (or, one of the Akashis?  Taiga’s not really sure what’s going on there) calls his former teammates by their first names to make a point, like he’s saying they’re still  _his_.  Taiga has a feeling that Aomine still calls Kuroko “Tetsu” for the same reason.  Kuroko doesn’t seem to mind what people call him, but he doesn’t drop the formality for  _anybody_ , even the guy who was basically his Tatsuya.

**This is one of the few cases in the fic where Kagami’s opinions don’t match mine, as the author.  While I do think that he’s right about why Bokushi uses first names, I don’t think Aomine calling Kuroko “Tetsu” is an attempt at being possessive.  I think he does it out of habit, and because just like Kuroko still sees Aomine as the brightly smiling boy who told him that no one who loves basketball can ever be bad, Aomine still sees Kuroko as the boy who loved basketball enough to practice more than anyone else.  And that’s “Tetsu.”  Now, the whole “your light is dim” speech to Kagami, though? _That_ was him being possessive!**

Taiga wonders what it would take for Kuroko to call  _him_ by his first name; though, knowing Kuroko, even if he did, it’d be “Taiga-kun” or, heh, “Taiga- _san_.”  He thinks about it sometimes, usually late at night when he’s too tired to ask himself why he’s even going there – the way his name would sound in Kuroko’s voice, the way his mouth would form the syllables: the soft click of his tongue on the “t” and the subtle pulse in his throat on the hard “g.”

He wonders what Kuroko would say, if he does ask – what it would mean if he says no, and (this always makes his heart beat faster) what it would mean if he says  _yes._

 **Kagami takes another step closer to realizing his feelings.  Personally, I think this one was pretty heavy-handed – it’s like, do you get it yet?  He wants to hold a** **_special_ ** **place in Kuroko’s life, beyond just being his light because he’s like, version 3.0 by this point.  He wants to be Kuroko’s one and only at** **something!** **Guess why he feels that way!**

**14\.   Nudity**

Japanese people have some strange customs when it comes to personal privacy.  They don’t like to touch, they barely look at each other on the train, but they’ll happily get naked in a public bath.

Taiga’s not body-shy or anything.  He’s an athlete; he’s seen more naked guys in locker rooms than he can count.  But it’s one thing to be naked with your teammates, and something else entirely to be with a bunch of complete strangers who aren’t shy about staring at your… everything.  Taiga knows he’s bigger and more built than your average Japanese man, but – like, seriously, this one time, an old man who looked like he was at least ninety actually poked his dick and complimented him on how healthy he was.

**This is another instance that was based off of my personal experiences.  In my case, a woman poked me in the boob and went, “Oh, it’s real! You’re very lucky.”**

“Please come with me,” Taiga begs Kuroko, the next time Coach tells him he needs a hot soak.  “Or – do you have a bathtub?  Let me use it?”

Kuroko shakes his head.  “I do, but it would be uncomfortably small for someone of Kagami-kun’s size.”  He frowns up at Taiga.  “If the point is to be looked at less, I don’t see why my presence would help.”

**I spent an embarrassing amount of time Googling pictures of Japanese homes and trying to figure out what Kuroko’s bathroom would look like.  I imagine it would be more traditional than Kagami’s modern, Westernized apartment, and probably would have a tub and bathing area.**

“Can’t you use Misdirection Overflow or something?”

“Sorry, my misdirection doesn’t work like that,” Kuroko says, but he’s smiling, so Taiga figures Kuroko will at least humor him.

Kuroko’s right about one thing, though – having him there does nothing to divert the other people’s attention, even though he’s gotten, wow, a  _lot_ more buff than Taiga remembers him being at the beginning of the season.  Like, he actually has  _guns_ now (little ones, but still), and his legs are all sleek, muscular lines from calf to thigh—

**This is a blatant, shameless excuse for the author to perv on Kuroko Tetsuya, I’m not even going to lie about it.  It does also have a narrative purpose though, and it’s to bridge the gap between the audience being aware of Kagami’s feelings, and Kagami himself being aware of his feelings.  Kagami thinks that he’s just objectively remarking on how Kuroko’s body has changed, but we, the audience, are like, Dude, you are _staring_ at his _naked body_ and thinking about how _good_ it looks.**

“Kagami-kun is staring,” Kuroko says, with enough disapproval in his tone for Taiga’s eyes to snap right up to his equally disapproving face, and right, now Taiga remembers why he’d asked Kuroko to come with him in the first place. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, and quickly looks away as he lowers himself into the water.

Thankfully, Kuroko doesn’t say anything after that, just sits down beside him, leaning back, eyes closed.

**It’s important to note that Kuroko isn’t upset by the idea of Kagami staring at him; he just didn’t know _why_ he was doing it, until he probably saw the flustered blushing and went, _Oh._ And then he’s totally okay with Kagami staring at him.  I don’t think I conveyed that very well, though, mostly because Kuroko’s supposed to inscrutable at this point, and giving the audience information that the POV character doesn’t have is _hard._**

After a few minutes, Taiga sneaks a glance at him.  His skin is faintly flushed from the heat, and the steam is making his hair curl a little at the ends.  It always surprises Taiga how someone with such little presence can be such a force on the court, but it’s not like Kuroko has an ordinary face, either.  It’s so bland and expressionless most of the time that when he does let something show, you can’t help but look at him.  It suits Kuroko’s personality.  Taiga likes it.  Well, as much as anyone can like just a  _face._

“Kagami-kun is staring again,” Kuroko says, without opening his eyes.

Taiga startles, water splashing around him as he jerks away from Kuroko.  “I—I was not,” he denies instinctively.  Geez, when the hell did he get that close?  “How do you know, anyway?  Your eyes are closed.”

“How would Kagami-kun know that, if he wasn’t looking at me?” Kuroko asks.  He cracks open one blue eye, and his lips curve up at the corners, just a little.

Taiga dunks him, feeling his ears burn.

**In terms of setup, this is the moment of payoff, not in Romance, which is still the emotional climax of the story.  But all the previous items, especially the ones that mention Kuroko, build up to this moment right here, when Kagami consciously feels the dokis.  I intentionally left physical attraction for last because I wanted that to seem like the missing piece, the thing that makes everything else he’s been feeling about Kuroko in the previous 13 items make _sense_.  It’s a bit of a cliché, especially in slash-fic, but I think it works here, and it fits the characterization as well.**

**15.**   **Realizing you might be gay for your best friend**

Shut up, he’ll blame this on Japan if he wants to.  He’s never had a single gay thought in his life until he came to this godforsaken country that contains people like  _Kuroko,_ who are unfair because they distract you with stuff like being an awesome basketball partner and an incredible person, while they sneak up on you, and then one day you wake up and it’s like –  _BAM!_ Feelings! 

**This line pretty much wrote itself, and I love it because Kagami thinks that Japan has turned him gay.**

It’s so stupid, because Taiga doesn’t even think he’s all that  _attracted_ to Kuroko.  Like, if he found nudies of Kuroko on the street, he’s not going to go home and jerk off to them or anything.  He just… wants to  _be_ with him and play basketball with him and stand beside him as he shows the world that the Phantom Sixth Man is better than the rest of those stupid Miracles put together.  But he also wants to touch Kuroko and smell his hair and make Kuroko look at him the way he does sometimes, like he can’t believe Taiga’s real, which is funny because that’s how he feels about Kuroko most of the time. 

**Ah yes, sexual attraction and Kagakuro – an interesting topic, considering the fact that neither of them have really shown any significant interest in members of either sex.  Personally, I think they’re both in the grey area of the aromantic and asexual spectrum, but I also selfishly want to write sex scenes for them, so I basically wrote them both as demiromantic and demisexual.**

The internet isn’t much help either.  All Taiga gets is gay porn (which is kind of traumatizing), or a bunch of big words like  _sexual fluidity_ (which Taiga doesn’t really understand), or reassuring videos about how it’s  _okay_ to be gay (which Taiga already knows), or phone numbers for support groups and suicide prevention hotlines (which… yeah). 

**I debated whether or not to keep this line, especially the part about suicide prevention, since I thought it might be triggery.  But there really isn’t enough for me to tag it, and I did want to inject some element of seriousness into this fic, because this paragraph isn’t supposed to be funny.**

He ends up calling Tatsuya, mostly because he’s pretty sure Kuroko would see right through him if he tried the “So, I have this  _friend_ ” tactic.

“Well, first of all, congratulations on hitting puberty,” Tatsuya says, with the lilt to his voice that means he’s probably laughing.  “Alex and I were starting to worry.”

“I hate you both,” Taiga replies bitterly.

“Secondly, I’ve got to say, I’m seeing a whole new side of you – I mean, it’s one thing to appreciate a guy’s ass, but to know that you like the, and I quote, ‘little scrunchy face he makes whenever his dog licks him’ is just—”

“Oh, fuck off.”  Why are all of Taiga’s friends such horrible people?  He’s a good person.  He deserves better than those jerk-faces.

“And I think you should tell him.”

He laughs.  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that, next Tuesday after  _never._ ”

Tatsuya sighs.  “Taiga, he’s going to find out.  Not only are you the  _worst_  liar in existence—”

“Hey!”

“—have you forgotten what his style of basketball does?”

“Shit.”  Taiga drops his face in his hands.  “What do I even say?  You know I’m no good with… you know…”

“You can say ‘ _feelings,’_ dumbass, it’s not going to bite,” Tatsuya says, unhelpfully.  “And that’s for you to figure out.”

**Two things here: first of all, whenever Kagami is communicating with Himuro, they’re both speaking English.  The major reason for this is that I wanted to be able to use ‘fuck,’ and that’s not a word that really exists in Japanese.  This wouldn’t normally be an issue, except that I _specifically_ point it out in item 19, so I didn’t want to be contradictory.  It also means that Kagami’s been thinking in English this entire time!**

**Secondly, I think there’s a difference between public!Himuro, which is gentle and suave, and private!Himuro, which – to me – is a lot sassier.  I have no real basis for this characterization, but I have to admit he’s more fun to write that way.**

 

**16\.   Romance, How to Fail At: a One-Man Show Starring Kagami Taiga**

Love is complicated all over the world, but for some reason, it seems  _especially_ complicated in Japan.  There’s a whole _process,_ apparently, involving letters in shoe lockers and after school confessions and something about buttons? 

**For those of you who don’t know, it’s sort of a cute custom for boys to give the second button on their gakuran to the person they like.  Obviously this wouldn’t work in Seirin, because they use zippers.**

Well, fuck that noise – there’s no way Taiga’s going to write Kuroko a  _love letter_ (and  _not_ because his writing’s so bad Kuroko wouldn’t be able to understand it, shut  _up_  Alex, he can’t  _believe_ Tatsuya told her – bro code, man,  _bro code_ ).  Taiga’s just going to march up to Kuroko and tell him—

“Tell me what?”

Taiga’s feet are a foot off the ground before he even registers what happened.  “What the  _hell,_ Kuroko, stop doing that!” he shouts.

“I was here before Kagami-kun walked by,” Kuroko says calmly, like he hasn’t just given Taiga a  _heart attack_.  “Tell me what?”

Right, the confession.  Taiga stands up straight, squares his shoulders, and stares down at him.  “Kuroko,” he says.

And that’s as far as he gets, because Kuroko’s… looking at him.  With his  _face._ And those  _eyes._

**When he’s not emoting, Kuroko’s resting face is kind of unnerving.  I don’t blame Kagami for chickening out.**

Shit, what was he  _thinking –_ he can’t just  _tell_ Kuroko how he feels!  What if Kuroko doesn’t like him back and things get awkward between them?  What if he thinks Taiga’s been perving on him and thinks it’s gross?  What if he doesn’t want to be basketball partners anymore?  Fuck, what if he can’t stand to be around Taiga so much that he ends up _transferring schools?_

**Kagami does have his moments of being overdramatic, though this tends to show up more in the drama CDs than anywhere else.  I had a line in the original draft about how he was going to make Kuroko promise not to change schools before he confessed his love.**

“Kagami-kun?”

Taiga blinks.  He’d almost forgotten, as his brain was hamster-wheeling what-ifs, that Kuroko’s still standing there.  He contemplates just staring him down for about half a second, before remembering that this is  _Kuroko,_ who could win a staring contest with a statue.  “Nevermind,” he mumbles, and quickly walks away. 

Okay, he  _runs_ away.  He’s not proud.

 

**16\.  Romance, The Sequel: Running Away From Your Feelings**

Taiga would have loved to just avoid Kuroko for the rest of the day (or, you know, the rest of  _his life_ ).  But that’s kind of difficult, considering the fact that they have most of their classes together, and Kuroko generally sits right behind him.  So Taiga just keeps his eyes forward and tries really hard to not think about the eyes that he can _feel_ burning holes into his back.  His Japanese teacher even keeps him after class to tell him how impressed he is that Taiga was so focused on the lesson.  Taiga doesn’t have the heart to correct the man.

He’s out of his seat as soon as the lunch bell rings and is out the door before Kuroko even finishes putting his books away.  He’s too tall to really blend in with the crowd, so he pretends to be going up to the roof like he always does, only to turn a sharp corner and run up two flights of stairs to the third years’ hall and then run down the set of stairs at the opposite end of the school.  He makes another few turns, looking carefully at his surroundings, until he ends up in the library, which is perfect because  _no one_ would think to look for him there.

**Kagami totally thinks that he’s being the perfect cross between James Bond and Ethan Hunt ( _Mission Impossible_ ), bless his basketball loving heart.  He’s a good boy, though, so he makes sure he doesn’t make a mess.**

The only flaw in his plan is that he’s not allowed to eat in the library, and Taiga’s not usually one for rule-breaking, even if there’s no one around to see it.  He compromises by dragging over a trash can and eating his lunch over it, so that it will catch any crumbs that might fall.  He’s just about finished his third (of five) sandwiches when his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

_From: Tatsuya_

_Have you told him yet?_

Taiga sighs.   _I’m working on it,_ he texts back.

A few seconds later, his phone buzzes again.   _Working on it = hiding from him like the loser you are?_

_SHUT UP._

Tatsuya’s reply is a photo of a drawing of two stick figures, a small one with a blue head and a much bigger one with a red head.  The red headed one is wearing a big poofy dress and a veil.

**The mental image of this text is my favourite part of this entire fic.**

“Kagami-kun?”

Taiga jumps, fumbling his phone so badly he almost drops it into the trash can.  He’s glad Coach isn’t here to see this pathetic lapse of motor skills.  “How did you—how long have you— _did you see anything?”_

Kuroko tilts his head, lips pursed in polite confusion.  “I’m not sure which question Kagami-kun actually wants me to answer.”  He looks down at Taiga’s lunch.  “Eating is not permitted in the library.”

“I  _know_ , geez,” Taiga grumbles, and pulls himself to his feet, stuffing the rest of his food into his bag.  “What are you even doing here, anyway?”  He tries to walk past Kuroko, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm.

“Kagami-kun,” Kuroko says, and Taiga really doesn’t want to think about what it means that he can tell Kuroko’s not happy with him just by the way he says his name.  “Have I done something to offend you since yesterday?”

**Intentional nod to all the times they’ve had whole conversations consisting of nothing but each other’s names during games.**

Taiga grimaces and looks away.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s a lie, Kagami-kun.”  Oh great, now he sounds  _disappointed_.  Taiga  _hates_ the disappointed voice; it always makes him feel like he’s a kid who’s just let down his favorite teacher.   

**Intentional nod to Kuroko’s AU job of being a kindergarten teacher.  Personally, I think that he’d be great at it; he’s kind, gentle, and friendly, but can be firm when he needs to be.  I think small children would adore him, and feel three centimeters tall if they ever make Kuroko-sensei use the _disappointed voice._**

“Ugh, can’t you mind your own damned business for once?” he snaps.  “There’s nothing you can do about this anyway, so just… leave me alone, okay?” 

He knows it’s the wrong thing to say as soon as he says it.  He can almost feel Tatsuya, all the way in Akita, face-palming at Taiga’s natural-born talent for sabotaging his own chances at love and happiness.  “Sorry,” he mutters, belatedly.

Kuroko stares at him for a long moment that’s even more unnerving now that Taiga knows how observant Kuroko is.  “Okay,” he says, finally.  “But if you’re ever ready to talk about it, I’ll be here.”  Then he smiles, soft and achingly gentle, and walks away.

Taiga waits until Kuroko’s turned the corner, before he goes up to the nearest wall and bangs his head against it.

**I leave it intentionally vague, exactly what Kuroko figures out that makes him smile.  He hasn’t figured out that Kagami’s in love with him by this point, but he knows that it’s about him, that it’s personal and not about basketball (Kagami would have said something if it was about basketball), that it’s serious but not life-threatening (again, he’d have said something).  So he’s okay with being a good, supportive friend, and letting Kagami come to him.  Incidentally, the smile I had in mind as I was writing this is the same smile he gives Aomine in the Teikou arc, after he tells Aomine that he can tell when he’s lying.**

**Kagami, whom we’ve already established is weak to any of Kuroko’s facial expressions, is like, oh great, now I _have_ to tell him.**

 

 **16\.   Romance, The Threequel: Man the Fuck Up, You Loser** **< \--** **favourite title in the fic**

In the end, he decides to text Kuroko.  He does it during math, which is one of the few classes they don’t have together.

**As has kindly been pointed out to me by a commenter, in Japanese schools, the students stay in the same class and the teachers rotate.  Therefore, Kuroko and Kagami would either have all the same classes, or none of the same classes.  Oops.**

_Wanna come over for dinner tonight?  I want to tell you something._

His plan is simple: Kuroko likes his cooking, so making him dinner will hopefully remind Kuroko that Taiga’s good at non-basketball stuff too, and he should totally want to date him.  Kuroko’s also really polite, so this will make him feel obligated to at least let Taiga down gently if he doesn’t feel the same way.  And being at his place gives him the home court advantage, which he’ll need, if only for emotional support.

**Maji tenshi Kagami?  Maji tenshi Kagami.**

He keeps one hand on his phone the whole class, and hears absolutely nothing except the thumping of his own heart, until his phone buzzes.

_From: Kuroko_

_Okay_

It’s a good thing that he doesn’t have any tests coming up, because Taiga’s basically useless.  He barely gets through practice – which is mostly fitness and endurance drills, thank God, because if he can barely look at Kuroko, he doesn’t want to think about how terrible their coordination would be.

The train ride to Taiga’s apartment is quiet.  He and Kuroko don’t usually talk much after practice (too tired, thanks to their sadistic coach), but it’s never been unnerving until now.  Kuroko sits and reads his book; Taiga sits and tries to suppress the urge to jump out of the moving train and just put himself out of his misery.

Dinner is pretty simple stuff.  He makes a quick chicken and vegetable stir-fry, and fries up a few dozen gyoza to go with it.  It’s not his best, but it’s not like Taiga has any room left in his stomach, what with all the butterflies.  He’s beginning to see the appeal of the love letter method of confessing your love.  He’s also never going to make fun of his classmates for confessing ever again, because this is so  _stressful._

**This is how you know he’s taking it seriously – he’s so nervous that he’s _not eating._ I also really like the mental image of Kagami sitting at his coffee table and watching a game while folding a hundred gyoza.  **

“Kagami-kun’s not being his usual glutton.”

Taiga startles a little, but manages to catch his chopsticks before they fall onto the table.  “W-What?  I’m not—I mean, yes I am!  I mean—”

“Kagami-kun’s Japanese is also usually better than this,” Kuroko says, and there’s just the faintest hint of a smile before his face turns solemn again.  “We don’t have to talk today, if Kagami-kun’s not ready.”

**The original version of this scene was a lot more dramatic.  Kuroko assumed that Kagami’s caginess was because he just found out he was dying, Kagami misinterpreted Kuroko’s reaction and assumed that he’d found out about Kagami's feelings and was disgusted, and then they both yelled and Kagami just blurted out his confession.  That tends to be how I write emotional climaxes – I go overboard with the drama, and then cut it down to something more in-character.**

Oh  _fuck_ no, Taiga can’t handle another day of this.  “No!” he shouts, and grabs Kuroko’s sleeve to keep him from getting up.  “No.  I’m—I’m ready.”  His palms are sweaty, and his heart is pounding like he’s being chased by a bear and it’s trying to break out of his chest and save itself.  It kind of feels like he’s about to play a really important game, except with none of the excitement and quadruple the pants-wetting terror.

“Kuroko,” he says.  Tatsuya had said to keep it simple.  Alex had said to just kiss him, but Alex is a freak so he’s not doing that.  “I…”

Kuroko looks at him, with those wide, unblinking eyes and that bland expression, just waiting, and fuck, he can’t do this with Kuroko  _staring_ at him like that.  

Taiga turns his head to the side, and takes a deep breath.  “I like you.  Please go out with me.”

 **There’s a word in Japanese for the whole concept of confessing: kokuhaku (** 告白 **), which literally means to announce your intentions clearly.  Apparently, one of the easiest and most straightforward ways of confessing is to say “Suki desu.  Tsukiatte kudasai,” which is basically what Kagami says.  I’m going to assume that just this once, he’ll use the polite forms.**

There is a long moment of silence.

“Ah,” Kuroko says.

**Usually, when I write fic, there’s a scene, or a line, or an image that acts as the spark, and I sort of mold the rest of the story around it.  This scene, from when Kuroko says “Ah” to Kuroko sending Midorima a photo of Scorpio’s lucky item, was the spark for the rest of this fic.  This scene was further broken down into specific key points, so that I could almost check them off as I wrote the scene, like a checklist.**

What?  Taiga stares at Kuroko, who’s – who’s reaching into his pocket and  _pulling out his phone_.  “What kind of a—I just told you that I have… have…”  _Be strong, Taiga, you’ve got this,_ “FEELINGS for you, and you’re  _ignoring_ me for your _phone?_ ”

**This was the first point, Kagami being able to say the word “feelings.”  Himuro’s very proud, I’m sure.**

“No, no, it’s just—” Kuroko flips the phone open, and holds it out to Taiga.  “I was thinking that this explains the messages I’ve been getting.”

Taiga scoots closer to look at it.  The screen’s on Kuroko’s inbox, where the top five messages are from each of his former teammates.  Kuroko opens the first one, from Murasakibara.

_Kaga-chin’s good at cooking, so if he makes anything delicious, share with me, okay?_

“What the—wait,  _Kaga-chin?”_

**Murasakibara calling Kagami “Kaga-chin” was the second.**

The next one’s from Aomine:  _satsukis upset but she wont let me beat you up so tell kagami that the next time i see him hes getting punched in the face._

“But I didn’t—”

**Aomine choosing Momoi over Kuroko was the third.  That had to happen in response to her choosing him over Kuroko when they both went to Touou.**

Kise’s message is just crying emoticons. 

**Next was Kise’s message.  I debated whether to actually put in the crying emoticons, but I thought it’d be funnier to let the audience imagine how elaborate they’d be.**

Akashi’s is short, to the point, and vaguely threatening:  _I trust that you know what you’re doing._

**This was the fifth.  Originally, that line was “short, to the point, and vaguely threatening, kind of like the sender,” but I took out the last bit because I figured it was kind of redundant.**

“What the  _hell?”_

Finally, from Midorima:  _In case Kagami’s abysmal stupidity overwhelms the usual compatibility between Leo and Aquarius—_

“Hey!  What’s that supposed to mean?" 

 _—it is imperative that you keep your lucky item on hand.  Today’s lucky item is a ball of red yarn._  

**And that was the last key point.  Midorima is my favourite, after Kagami and Kuroko.  Awkward tsundere pretty boys for the win!**

“That’s just Midorima-kun’s way of showing his support,” Kuroko says.  He rummages in his bag for a few seconds, then pulls out an unsharpened pencil.  He takes a picture of it and sends it back to Midorima. 

**Like many of Kuroko and Midorima’s interactions, this one is multi-layered.  Kuroko is simultaneously: 1) showing gratitude, because he knows that Midorima does care, even if he pretends not to; 2) gently admonishing Midorima for the insult to Kagami by bringing up something he knows Midorima is trying to ignore; and 3) telling Midorima to mind his own business, because he doesn’t get to comment on his and Kagami’s relationship when Midorima hasn’t even acknowledged his feelings yet.  You can see why Midorima respects him and kind of hates his guts at the same time.**

“What was that for?”

“It’s Scorpio’s lucky item for today.”

“Scorpio?” Taiga asks, confused.  “Isn’t Midorima a Cancer?"

Kuroko smiles.  “Yes, he is.”

**Takao, however, is a Scorpio.  Sorry, they’re my second favourite pairing after Kagami/Kuroko; I had to include them.**

Taiga stares back down at Kuroko’s phone.  “How did they  _know_?  Hell,  _I_  didn’t even know until like, two days ago!”

**Interesting fact: I’ve known since I plotted out this scene how the GoM found out, but in every re-write this scene has undergone, this information has never been given.  It’s mostly because the explanation isn’t actually relevant to the plot, and it bogs down the pacing of the narrative.  The important thing here is Kuroko’s response to Kagami’s confession, not how his friends found out.**

Kuroko just  _hmms_ noncommittally and puts his phone away.  “I apologize for that.  Please allow me to give a proper reply to Kagami-kun’s confession.”

And just like that, Taiga’s heart, which has  _just_ returned to its normal rhythm, ratchets right back up to chased-by-a-bear mode.  Seriously, Kuroko  _cannot_ be good for his cardiac health.

“Kagami-kun is very stupid,” Kuroko says, and Taiga almost face-plants on his table because  _of course_ Kuroko would say that, why did Taiga have to fall for such an  _asshole?_

“But he’s also very loyal, and kind, and he never gives up on his friends.”  Kuroko smiles at him, and it’s  _that_ smile, the one from after they beat Touou, when he told Taiga that he was glad to have met him.  “Thanks to Kagami-kun, we won the Winter Cup.  Kiyoshi-senpai can retire without regrets.  And I was able to love basketball again.”

He reaches across the table and tucks his hand into Taiga’s, slotting their palms together.  Their joined hands fit so well that Taiga just stares helplessly. 

“I’m very grateful to have Kagami-kun in my life.”

**This scene was probably the most difficult to write in the entire fic, and it’s the reason I actually went back and added the line about the moon in “Exams.”  I didn’t want the confession scene to just be “I like you” / “I like you too.”  We, the readers, know how significant Kagami’s “I like you” is, because we were with him as he slowly discovered the depth of his feelings for Kuroko, but to just have Kuroko respond with “I like you too” felt trite, and unworthy of the amount of buildup it took to get to that point.  So instead, I had Kuroko explain _why_ he loves Kagami instead, as the verbal equivalent to what Kagami has experienced throughout this fic.  For that, I braved the awkwardness of writing Kuroko dialogue, where he refers to Kagami in the third person even though he’s sitting right there. *facepalm***

Taiga ducks his head, scowling.  He can feel his entire face burning, but even that’s nothing compared to the heat blooming in his chest, warming him from the inside out.  “You always say such embarrassing things, you idiot,” he says, squeezing Kuroko’s hand tightly.

“Sorry,” Kuroko replies, and squeezes back, not sounding sorry at all.

**An earlier draft of this scene ended in a kiss.  I decided to take it out because I didn’t think it was necessary.  The hand holding already conveyed the emotional catharsis that the climactic moment needed.  Besides, I have a bad habit of using sex scenes as climaxes, and I’ve been trying to break out of it.**

**17\.   Senpai**

Normally, Taiga likes his senpai.  They’re reliable, they’re strong, and even though some of them are weird, like Izuki-senpai’s puns and Kiyoshi-senpai’s weirdly happy personality, they’re good, admirable people that Taiga’s proud to look up to. 

**[This](http://sicariorum.tumblr.com/post/76330167675/gchatlogs-how-kagami-relates-to-people) is fundamentally how I see Kagami’s relationship with Seirin, in that he really buys into the idea of belonging _,_ and having senpai to look after him.  That’s very much a cultural difference between Japan and America.  I mean, we have mentors, and there’s always an unofficial sense of older students watching out for the younger ones, but it’s not an established thing the way senpai/kouhai relationships are in Japan.  In some ways, Kagami’s relationship with Himuro was a microcosm of that, which explains why Himuro was so rattled by the possibility of his kouhai overtaking him.  I probably could have expanded on this more, since it does form a nice resolution to Kagami’s feeling at the end of “Generation of Miracles,” where he’s envious of Kuroko’s closeness with the GoM.  However, that would have slowed the pacing of the fic, and it wouldn’t have worked as a post-getting-together section.**

He likes them a lot less after he tells the team that he and Kuroko are dating, and Captain takes him aside and gives him The Talk.  As in, the safe-sex-respect-your-partner-don’t-just-fall-asleep-afterwards-some-people-like-to-cudde talk.  It’s uncomfortably similar to the one his dad gave him, before they returned to Japan.  In both cases, he spends the entire talk with his eyes glued to the floor, hoping and praying that it will open up and swallow him whole; or that his head will heat up so much that he’ll spontaneously combust.

Taiga’s only consolation is that Coach gives Kuroko the same talk,  _and_ a bunch of instructional pamphlets, which make him turn so red that Taiga starts to worry for his safety and well-being.

**Riko and Hyuuga as the team parents!  Kiyoshi, of course, is the kindly grandfather.  Don’t even argue with me on this; you know it’s true!**

“Do  _not_ get your information from internet porn,” she tells them both, pointing a stern finger.  “Kuroko-kun, you’ll make sure to  _read_ these before you two do anything, won’t you?  Don’t expect me to go easy on either of you in practices!”

Taiga’s not sure whether to be insulted that no one expected  _him_ to do any reading, or deeply and intensely grateful.

**Don’t ask me why she just has those pamphlets on hand; I have no idea.  She doesn’t tell them to not let their relationship distract them during practices though, because she does know those two basketball idiots, after all.**

Coach keeps him back after practice that day, and has another talk with him.  “I don’t know it is in America, Kagami-kun,” she says, looking serious and a little sad.  “But here, this kind of thing is not… always accepted.”

Taiga nods.  He didn’t exactly hang with the most open-minded people back in America.  He knows damned well how lucky he is that the worst he got from his teammates was mild ribbing about not checking them out in the showers and jokes that now there are more girls left for the rest of them.

**It probably wasn’t realistic to have the _entire team_ be okay with Kagami and Kuroko dating, but honestly, I did not want to bring up another conflict this close to the end of the fic.  I did want to keep the conversation Riko has with Kagami, though, because I really do think that while Kagami has the hotter temper, Kuroko would be more likely to go up to someone who insulted them and firmly but politely tell them they’re wrong and here’s why, even if he gets beaten up for it.**

“I want you to keep an eye on Kuroko-kun, if people ever… say anything, because you may be able to ignore them but you  _know_ he’ll try to pick a fight.”

Taiga sighs.  “Yeah, I know,” he says, and makes a mental note to sign them both up for self-defense lessons or something.

**18\.  Tentacle Porn**

So, yeah, Taiga watches and reads porn.  He doesn’t do a lot of Japanese porn, though, partly because some if it’s weirdly censored, but mainly because of stuff like  _tentacle porn._

WHY DOES IT EXIST?  And why are people always  _crying?_ And  _wet?_ And who even gets turned on by that shit, because Taiga watched about ten seconds of one video and his balls basically tried to shrink back inside his body.  And did he mention the  _tentacles?_ Tentacles!  Like Taiga needs  _another_ animal to be terrified of!  How’s he going to eat calamari now?

**Admittedly, this one’s a filler.  I needed something between “Senpai” and “Vulgarity.”  But it’s funny, and I liked the idea that his major problem with tentacle porn is that it makes calamari unappetizing.**

**19\.   Vulgarity**

For the most part, Taiga likes Japanese – the language, not the subject.  The subject can die in a fire, because Taiga will never forget the fact that the only way he passed that exam was by relying on  _Midorima._ But if there is one area in which English holds superiority, it’s the fact that English has the word  _fuck._

**Fuck is the best word that’s ever been invented and I will fight you if you disagree.**

And hey, Taiga’s totally cool with insulting people by using an  _impolite_ form of ‘you,’ or saying ‘shit’ and stuff, but sometimes there’s only one word for a situation, and the word is FUCK.

“ **Fuck**!” Taiga gasps, fingers gripping the sheets as he tries not to buck completely off the mattress.  “ **Fuck, fuck,** _ **fucking**_  – don’t stop!  Why are you stopping?”

**This was really, really hard to convey, so I basically didn’t bother, but in my head as I was writing it, there’s actually a lot of language switching in this scene.  I’ve fixed it so that anything in bold is actually said in English, because – as item 19 says, there’s no _fuck_ in Japanese.  I also didn’t think of this one until pretty late in the fic-writing process, and so I had to go back and delete every previous instance of Kagami saying fuck when he’s supposed to be speaking Japanese.**

**I also intentionally left it somewhat vague as to exactly what they’re doing.  The audience can use their imagination on that one. :)**

“I’m not sure if Kagami-kun is using that word as an expletive or a verb in the imperative,” Kuroko says, because he’s a little  _bastard,_ and oh man, Taiga’s going to remember this when it’s  _his_ turn.

“ **DOES IT FUCKING MATTER**?  Both, okay?  Both!  **Come the fuck on** , I’m  _dying_ here.”

“ **I’ll come the fucking, then** ,” Kuroko replies, only he says it in  _English,_ his  _terrible_ , badly pronounced English, and Taiga just loses it completely, coming so hard that he actually blacks out for a few seconds.

**There’s no deep, symbolic meaning behind this; I just wanted Kagami to have an unconventional kink, so I had it be Kuroko speaking terrible English.  I have headcanon that Himuro likes teaching Kuroko how to say dirty things in English, and he repeats them (usually incorrectly) to Kagami while they’re having sex.  Kagami’s not sure if he loves them or wants to kill them both.**

**Also, can I just say, I do not understand the fics where Kagami suddenly turns into this suave, Casanova-type character as soon as the sex scene starts.  Especially at this stage in his life, if Kagami ever seduced someone, it would probably be unintentional and he’d probably be really confused about it.**

 

**20\.   Yaoi**

The thing is, Taiga doesn’t think he’s a uke.  Yeah, he likes taking it up the ass (and hey, to all the haters: don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, because it’s fucking  _awesome_ ), and okay, he might have cried a little bit the first time he and Kuroko had sex (shut up, it was really intense, okay?).  But he’s not like, weepy all the time, he doesn't constantly try to say “no” during sex, and let’s face it, he’s like, twice Kuroko's size in every direction.

**And here’s my little soapbox moment.  Repeat after me: the height rule is a lie.  Top!Kuroko is a rarity in this fandom, and that’s a tragic, tragic thing.  I’m not going to say too much here, because I know people can be very passionate about their top/bottom preferences, but I’d just like to point out that in a sports anime, the sport is meant to be a reflection of life (hence why conflict resolution is basically, “let me show you my basketball/tennis/volleyball/whatever”), and Kuroko has been the game-maker since _the day they met._ So as far as I’m concerned, the answer to who tops in KagaKuro is “whomever Kuroko _wants_ to top.”**

But he doesn’t think he’s a seme either, which he’s actually pretty happy about because a lot of the ones he sees in porn are kind of rapey.  The fact that a lot of them have huge hands also makes him really uncomfortable; he can’t look Kiyoshi-senpai in the eye for  _days._ And it’s not like Kuroko’s  _delicate_ , for all that he’s tiny.  He still remembers the first time he caught Kuroko’s Ignite Pass Kai; his entire arm had ached afterwards. 

Whatever, labels are for losers anyway.  Kuroko says the same.  Well, technically, Kuroko spouted off a bunch of stuff about how yaoi isn’t really meant to reflect real life homosexual relationships, but Taiga’s gotten pretty good at listening for the “Yes, you’re right and I completely agree with you” hidden in Kuroko-speak. 

**I don’t think there’s anyone who’s unfamiliar at this point with the concept of the[yaoi hands](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/yaoi-hands), but if you are, just know that a lot of the time in yaoi, the size difference between seme and uke are exaggerated to the point of anatomical impossibility.**

So yeah, Japan does suck sometimes – like the way sales clerks actually look  _pityingly_ at him whenever he walks into a shoe store, and the fact that he’s  _still_ getting failing marks in Japanese and History.  But he’s got basketball, with kickass rivals and an amazing team, and he’s got a fantastic partner on the court and off.  On balance, he’d say coming to Japan was a pretty awesome choice, all things considered.

***Sigh* I’m not very good at writing endings.  I tend to get impatient by then and rush things, so usually the only stories I can end well are the ones where I wrote the ending first.  On re-reading, I can see that this one fell into the trap of the too-abrupt ending.  However, in my defence, given what item 20 was about, the only way I could have had a decent ending was to either tack on more dialogue or add a 21 st item, neither of which appealed to me.  As well, by this point, everything that had to happen in the fic had happened: Kagami finds a place to belong, he works out his feelings for Kuroko, and he learns to at least grudgingly appreciate some aspects of Japanese culture.  Since that was the case, I didn’t see the point in dragging the fic on further, even if that would have made for a less abrupt ending.**

**And that’s the end of the DVD commentary!  If you made it this far, good for you, because we’re past 13,000 words at this point.  And if you’re a writer, I encourage you do a DVD commentary of your own!**


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